Fuel exhaustion brings down Beech A36

The Beech A36 departed on the accident flight, and after flying 1 hour, 18 minutes using fuel from the left tank, the pilot switched fuel tanks, and the engine lost power.

A passenger reported that there was a strong headwind, so the pilot was diverting for fuel.

Attempts to restore power were unsuccessful.

During the ensuing forced landing, the airplane’s right wing collided with a tree before the airplane hit terrain near Wann, Okla., resulting in three serious injuries.

The pilot said that, before departure he had 20 gallons of fuel in each wing fuel tank.

However, a post-accident examination revealed no fuel in the uncompromised left wing fuel tank. The right wing fuel tank had been compromised, but there were no fuel stains on the ground and there was no odor of fuel in the immediate area.

Later, the engine was functionally tested and operated satisfactorily at all power settings.

The airplane likely departed with minimal fuel available in the right wing fuel tank. When the pilot selected the right tank during cruise flight, the engine likely lost power due to fuel exhaustion.

The NTSB determined the probable cause as the pilot’s inadequate preflight inspection and planning and inflight fuel management, which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion and a subsequent forced landing in an area of unsuitable terrain.

As I’ve said before with these fuel starvation crashes, there is no excuse to leave the ground without topped of tanks. If your plane won’t carry topped off tanks plus the passengers then you don’t have a big enough airplane. Plan and simple as that. Personally I don’t fly the pattern at my home field to practice landings without topped off fuel tanks. That’s rule number one on my check list and rule number two is a full complement of oil. I won’t say I’ll never make an error or stupid mistake, however, fuel starvation or low engine oil won’t be one of them.

As I have stated over and over “you can’t fix stupid”.
I agree with you Mike, if stupid people can’t adhere to the basics of flying, give us your airplanes and we will make sure they remain able to have wind under their wings.

The only reason an airplane (of this sort) is able to fly and thus defy gravity is because that fan on the front end turns at a sufficiently high enough rate that it is able to pull a large enough volume of air through it and consequently through Newtonian physics pulls the airplane along behind it. And what is it that makes the fan turn? Why that would be the internal combustion engine attached to the fan of course. And what is it that is the source of the engine’s internal combustion? In this case – gasoline. And when there’s no more of it available the engine stops combusting (sic) and the fan stops turning and gravity takes over. Gravity always wins, always! Why people who operate airplanes seem to cavalierly regard that most essential requirement, fuel, can only be explained that they’re nuts. It’s not the same as driving your car around on empty where gravity and the sudden reduction of total energy to zero are involved when the engine quits due to fuel exhaustion unless of course you happen to drive your car into a tree at high speed after it runs out of gas.